FREE REPORT!

The Incredible Shrinking Brain

May. 14, 2013|310 views

SpreadTheWord!

Need more
motivation to get moving? How about this: Exercise could help keep you brain
from shrinking. Scientists have known for years that older people often
experience a curious decrease in brain volume. And this is no small thing.
Shrinking brains are cause for concern. Loss of brain mass is usually
accompanied by cognitive decline; a gradual loss of memory and thinking
capacity. Brain studies among young and old subjects suggest that much of this
age-associated loss in brain mass involves the loss of white matter.

Although
we usually think of “gray matter” when we think about, well, thinking, we now
know that white matter is not the passive tissue we once believed it to be. In
fact, recent research shows that it’s nearly as important for cognition as gray
matter. White matter plays a crucial role in learning, for instance, and allows
for coordination among different regions of the brain.

Advances
in modern imaging technology allow doctors to assess these changes in brain
activity in real time, among healthy, living people. Scottish researchers
wondered if staying physically active in old age might help prevent the loss of
brain tissue, while preserving cognitive function. Lucky for them, there’s a
group of people in Great Britain who are enrolled in an aging study. These
folks hit 70 years of age in 2006, and investigators from the University of
Edinburgh documented how physically active they were. Three years later, the
researchers performed brain scans and determined that people who were more
physically active experienced significantly less white matter loss, and less brain
atrophy than their peers who were less active. Gives new meaning to the phrase
‘use it or lose it,’ don’t you think?